Just Friends
by amandajbruce
Summary: He knows that they are just friends. That they have always been just friends. That they will always be just friends. And that is just fine.


Cat Valentine is one of those girls who always seems to be bubbling over with happiness. Her head stays in the clouds, her thoughts jump from place to place, and no one can really follow them. Even if you upset her to the brink of tears, she's quick to accept an apology with a genuine smile.

In contrast, Robbie Shapiro is one of those boys who is always trying to push his head up through the sadness. He is always fending off insults, combating his shyness, and more often than not, people are telling him to shut up before the thoughts can even make their way from his brain to his mouth.

He thinks that their friendship shouldn't work. Cat is all sweetness and sunshine. And Robbie is... not. She even smells like sugar and sunlight. He usually just smells like soap. If he's lucky. Everyone likes Cat. Even when she stands up and says the strangest thing on stage, she gets rousing applause. Robbie gets booed back to his seat about fifty times more often than he gets applause. But, even though they can't be more different, he also knows they are more alike than anyone else realizes.

For one thing, they share a therapist. 'A' therapist because Robbie actually has two: one for his issues, and one for Rex's issues. He still finds it cool and understanding that his parents let him see a separate person for Rex. And of course, Robbie has to go with him because Rex doesn't think he actually _needs _to see a shrink. Rex is the cool one. Robbie is the geek. But, Rex wouldn't talk to the therapist without him, so he had to go. Cat has multiple therapists too, as Robbie found out when she was leaving the Doctor's office as he was going in on a Wednesday evening. There's one she goes to on her own, and one the whole family goes to visit in a big group. And when he goes inside and sits on the overstuffed brown couch in the Doctor's office, it's kind of comforting to think that Cat was sitting in the same place not even an hour before him. It's nice to know that he's not the only one who needs someone to talk to.

And it kind of becomes a thing.

He doesn't know why, but one Wednesday after his appointment, where he just spent his whole hour telling the therapist about a dream he had where he was attacked by a group of talking ice cream cones, he finds Cat sitting in the lobby of the building stitching some lace onto a jacket by hand. As soon as he stops to greet her, she begins chattering nonstop, her voice airy and a little detached, about the pirate costume she's making for her brother. She chats with him all the way out to the parking lot, and then suddenly springs a question on him that involves her not wanting to go home and really wanting some frozen yogurt.

The next week, it's the same thing, except when he comes out, she's frowning over math problems instead of a needle and thread. Her normally wide eyes are squinted in confusion, and her usually smiling mouth is twisted in disappointment. It's Robbie who asks if she'd like some help. So they go for frozen yogurt again, him trying to explain the confusing math concepts to a girl who only understands counting when it involves dance steps or music notes, while she takes small bites of a red velvet cake flavored cup of frozen yogurt. Robbie chooses to ignore the obvious connection between her choice of dessert and her bright red hair. But Cat makes sure to tell him that he can't just keep buying a bottle of water every week. He's going to have to start getting something to eat or their meetings won't be as much fun for her.

And that's when he realizes that they're going to be doing this every week after therapy. And it's kind of nice. Sometimes he shows up early so he can sit in the lobby and work on essays while she's in for her session. And after his, she's always there waiting for him, some new project in her lap, and they head out for Chinese food or coffee or frozen yogurt. Sometimes he helps her with homework. Sometimes she helps him memorize lines. Sometimes he brings his guitar and they write cheesy songs that no one else understands on the bench outside the coffee place. Sometimes they just sit and talk, about Rex, about school, about her brother, about class, but they never, ever talk about therapy after their first run in.

And it's nice to hang out with just Cat. There have been times where he's hung out with Andre, and there have been times when he's worked with Tori on school projects, and he's even spent some one on one time with Beck (though not Jade because as much as he admires her, he's also really scared of her), but usually when he's with Cat, there's someone else around. And it's _really nice_. And he doesn't get nervous around her like he used to. And she doesn't make fun of him when he complains about Rex (because Cat treats Rex like a real person too). And when they walk down the street, sometimes, she'll grab on to his arm or his hand or his belt loop before she starts to belt out whatever song is stuck in her head, coaxing him to sing along.

Another thing they have in common? The row of pill bottles lined up behind the sink in their respective bathrooms.

At first, he doesn't think much of it. Her inviting him over to her house when they're paired up for a scene together. They usually work on assignments at school in the Black Box, or at a table in the courtyard during lunch, or even in the parking lot after school. But one Wednesday, after their sessions, she asks if he wants to come over to her place to work where it's quieter. It makes sense. They have to write the dialogue and figure out the blocking. They are going to be a divorcing couple who decide to break up because he likes fried chicken better than her. It's a strange assignment, but not the strangest Sikowitz has given them in the past. At least they're allowed to write a script in advance. Improv isn't his strong suit.

And he doesn't know what it is he's expecting. A part of Robbie thinks there will be a dizzying array of colors and textures in the home, like Cat is a reflection of her parents and their design preferences. Like Cat's love for all things vibrant must have come from somewhere. But, really, the house is like any other house. It's big. Cat's parents do have money, after all. And there are some modern art prints here and there that he doesn't recognize. But most of the furniture is white or black, and even the family photos on the wall exist somewhere in the gray scale. It's so different from Cat that he almost feels like they must be at someone else's house.

But Cat is the one who knows the alarm code for the front door. And Cat is the one who feeds the dog in the stainless steel kitchen. And Cat is the one offering him something to drink from the gigantic refrigerator. Robbie accepts a drink and eyes the rooms they pass through with something akin to the interest of a researcher. Maybe this is why Cat shines so brightly. She has to make up for the dullness at home. Of course, her room is done in various shades of bright pink. And he can't doubt that it belongs to her, that she probably picked everything out when she was ten and has kept it ever since. Then again, she could have picked all of the pink last week for all he knows. In addition to red velvet cupcakes, she has a thing for cotton candy too.

When they take a break because Cat keeps getting distracted by the dog and Robbie's bladder can't hold it anymore, that's when he enters her bathroom. Her bathroom is obviously hers alone with all of its pink and purple and little rubber ducks sitting in the window sill. It's when he's finished and washing his hands that he sees the prescription pill bottles lined up, just like his, from tallest to shortest just a small distance away from the faucet. A plastic cup sits next to them, ready and waiting to be filled with water. He doesn't read the labels. He doesn't invade her privacy like that. And it's a big step for him. This is the same guy who used to spy on Tori while she made out with her boyfriends because he was so lonely and Tori was (is) so pretty. This is the same guy who used to stand silently, just around the corner in the school hallway, so he could pop up in the middle of conversations just to feel included. Well, he still does that sometimes. But he hasn't spied on Tori in... okay, in a few weeks, maybe. But reading the labels on Cat's medication feels wrong somehow. More wrong than any of the other strange things he does. That's something he won't do to her.

They get a B on their scene. And he knows Cat would have received a higher grade if she had been paired with someone else, but when he tells her that at lunch, even though Jade nods her head in agreement, Cat tells him he did a great job and she wouldn't have wanted to work with anyone else. Jade rolls her eyes, but she doesn't say anything too scathing to him, which is nice, but he figures she probably just doesn't want Beck to put her in a timeout.

He should probably be happy that Cat wouldn't want to divorce anyone over fried chicken but him, but Robbie thinks she's just saying it to make him feel better.

Because Cat understands him.

Which is another one of those things they have in common. They understand each other. Maybe it's because they both have a few too many quirks for other people to really _get _them. But when he's getting strange looks in the school hallways, Cat is nodding her head in agreement, and when Cat is being side eyed by other students, Robbie is usually there supporting her. When Robbie's wallet is stolen by a bunch of Northridge girls, Cat's the one who loans him a twenty instead of making fun of him. And when Cat is convinced her dog is trying to run away, it's Robbie who sits down with her while she has a conversation with a pet psychic, not Tori, who just says Cat is adorable and goes back to writing a song with Andre.

Cat even seems to understand his relationship with Rex. When Rex says mean things to her, she doesn't take it out on Robbie. Tori will yell at him, Jade will threaten him with bodily harm, even Andre and Beck get annoyed with him, but Cat always talks right back to Rex. He can't see why the rest of his friends don't treat Rex the same way. It's like Cat is the only one on the same wave length as him, the only one who can see Rex for what he really is: a real pain in the neck _person _that Robbie has been charged with taking care of. Everyone else insists Rex isn't real. Cat knows that he is.

Cat's even helped him discipline Rex on occasion, stuffing him into Robbie's backpack when the little dude needed a timeout (or twelve). She's even thumped him on the nose a time or two when he's made mean remarks about the other girls.

And Robbie thinks that might be the real reason that Rex has never hit on Cat. Rex says that Cat is too weird for him, but Robbie thinks it's because Cat is the only girl who really _sees _him, just like she's the only girl who really _sees _Robbie. Robbie wonders if Rex is just as afraid of Cat as he is of Jade, but in a completely different way, of course.

And when Tori decides to organize a Prom (excuse Robbie, a Prome), for the students at Hollywood Arts, Robbie decides to forgo his usual method of getting a date: begging every female he knows, getting turned down, then deciding to go with a friend. He decides he just wants to skip all the rejection and go straight to the one person who would actually have a good time with, Cat.

But Cat, just like every other girl in his life, turns him down.

Oh, sure, she tries to soften the blow with her innocent voice and her round eyes. She _says _she would go with him if she wasn't already going with someone else. But Robbie sees the way her eyes flit around him, like she's trying to spare his feelings, like she's lying. And instead of accepting her rejection and finding someone else to go to the dance with, he calls her on it, over and over. Because for some reason, he just can't accept that she would have said yes, that she would have liked to go with him if someone else hadn't gotten there first.

He knows this isn't just his normal insecurity talking. He knew it as soon as he even entertained the idea of asking her to Prome. But Robbie is a little afraid that this new, larger, version of insecurity will lead to something worse.

He watches her dancing in the rain while she jumps around and belts out high notes up above the "dance floor" of the school parking lot. She looks deliriously happy to be singing, face upturned to drops falling from the sky. And he can't help but let his anger melt away. He joins the crowd in jumping along, keeping his eyes, behind his rapidly fogging glasses, on the red headed girl who is having the time of her life. He could watch he laughing the whole not.

And in the days following, Robbie starts to wonder if this is what it's really like to fall.

He knows that they are _just friends_. That they have always been _just friends_. That they will always be _just friends_. And that is _just fine_.

Except for the times when she makes that high pitched squeak of amusement, or that slight giggle of satisfaction, and he wants to be let in on the joke before anyone else. Because he just has to know what could make her so happy.

And except for the times when he sees her with another guy, or she talks about another guy, or he hears another guy talking about her, and something slimy and hot slides into his stomach and he has to clamp a hand down over Rex's mouth to make sure the "puppet" (but don't ever call him that to his face) doesn't put voice to the thoughts that only he seems to know.

Because even though Robbie has all of these _feelings _that might be threatening to come to the surface, he doesn't want them to. He wants to push them down, down, down, as far as he can, no matter how bad his therapist might say that is for him. Because if they come to the surface and he says more than he means to say, he'll miss out on Wednesday evenings singing songs about broken glass, or memorizing lines for one of Sikowitz's plays, or even practicing his ping pong skills. And he doesn't want to give up his Wednesdays. He doesn't want to give up _his Cat. _

Not that Robbie Shapiro thinks Cat Valentine belongs to him. He only wishes she did. But being _just friends _is so much better than being nothing, or worse, a creepy stalker guy who hangs out outside of her window.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, I've never written a story for Victorious before, but in recently catching up on the episodes I've missed, I've become really interested in Cat, Robbie, and Jade. They're definitely the most interesting characters of the bunch to me, so I decided I'd try my hand at a story or two. I'm hoping I didn't butcher Cat or Robbie here. I welcome any and all feedback :)**


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